Our 3rd and final month in the Philippines has begun.
Our last month of the Race is underway.
We are exhausted to our very cores.
It would be easy to coast through.
But don’t give up yet.
Why would God not use this time to transform lives?
It’s an off-day. No ministry. I am riding the public “bus” called a jeepney into town to find a coffee shop and rest for a few hours. Collect myself. Rejuve for the week to come.
The Lord has different plans.
As I walk, a teenage girl with no shoes and a tattered blue shirt limps past me. I ask if she is okay. She does not respond. With the rest of the people on that street, I watch her walk away, wondering what circumstances lead to this moment in her life.
With the rest of the people on that street, I do nothing.
I can’t stop thinking about her and how I watched her walk away. God starts in me a tiny flame at first, but soon a growing fire to find this girl.
I ask everyone.
“Excuse me, have you seen a girl with no shoes on and a blue shirt?” After eight people, a security guard points me to an empty town square. I wander up and down, asking God to help me find this woman. I know I am supposed to find her, I just know it.
Finally, I see her.
Except it is not her at all. It is a different teenage girl, sleeping on a bench with no shoes on and a ripped blue shirt. It is not the same girl, but the similarities let bme know that this is the girl I am supposed to find.
I approach her.
I gently nudge her awake and ask if she wants to get something to eat with me. She agrees, and we head off.
I had no idea what I am getting into.
We go to 7-11, get a slushy. Go to Jollibee, get spaghetti and coke. A market-store to buy her new clothes and shoes.
This whole time, I’m asking her about herself, her family, why she was sleeping on the streets. But it’s almost entirely impossible to communicate with her because of drugs, abuse, spiritual darkness, language barrier, and fear surrounding her. The little that I learn, though, makes me want nothing more than to get her off the streets and into the arms of the One who loves her most.
While walking around in her new clothes, she asks me for money to buy a cigarette. My first thought is, “No, if i give her money, I will be encouraging her dependency on them, and I will be supporting something God doesn’t want for her.”
Or, you will show her that you don’t judge her for the things she does. For who she is. For what she has to do to endure her life.
Come as you are.
I don’t want to defend what I did. But I also want to bring to light that I am not proud of the immediate thought I had, and that no, cigarettes are not generally “Christian-like”, but that doesn’t mean giving a girl 10 cents to buy one means I am supporting it.
Sometimes you just gotta go for it, gotta dive right into the messes people are in to be capable of walking through it with them.
I think Jesus would have bought her one.
I think He would have gracefully used it as an opportunity to show her that not being an in-a-box Christian, like so many around the world are, is more desired by Him then faking your life to look like you have it all together.
Maybe I’m over thinking it.
Either way, I buy her a cigarette.
We sit and talk for an hour.
I learn a lot about her that makes me want to vomit.
More than anything, she wants to swim in the Caribbean Sea. She has an older brother and sister, but they don’t let her leave when she goes home, so she stays away. He boyfriend hits her and leaves scars. She sleeps on that bench or in a hotel with American men.
I interpret the rest.
We run into Destrey and Alex, and all four of us hang out. We buy her dinner and laugh together. Strange things happen after that, things that make us realize how spiritually dark it is around her, things she says and does towards the men we walk by, and the way they treat us and her, and what she draws on the paper we give her.
We want to show her where a safe place is, so we bring her to the church we are working with. We show her around, but the pastor is not there so we cannot ask him if they have a room she can sleep in. There is nothing more we can do that day, so we take her back to town and say goodbye, planning to meet again soon.
We do not realize how unwelcome she is at the Baptist church we take her to.
Both pastors and a woman at the church talk to us and tell us that we cannot “just bring people like that” here. That they do not have a place where she can stay. That they tried talking to the girl with no shoes, but she was “not very friendly” and did not respond to their questions. That she is “trying to take advantage of us because we are white”. That she only wants our money.
I have never felt such righteous anger in my life.
Flash forward a day. Through working through it with Jesus, Alex, and Destrey, I feel better about her situation and what we can do to help, despite the lack of support and any kind of resources. God specifically lead me to her, and He is going to specifically lead me in what to do next.
I wish this story had a happy ending.
It doen’t yet.
Yet.
Please join me in praying for this girl. Praying for her situation to change, for doors to be opened for us to help her off the streets, for her to trust us, and ultimately to trust the Lord with her life. And if you can, please pray for strength for us here. We are tired. I am tired. Nine months of ministry wears on your very bones, and I am exhausted to my core.
I have faith that God is going to help us help this girl who had no shoes. If you want to know more about her, feel free to email me ([email protected]). I was vague while telling her story and didn’t mention her name to protect her and the situation she is in right now, legal and social.
Thank you so much for the endless support I have from you all. It means the world.
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“I always used to wonder why somebody didn’t do something about that, then I realized, I was somebody”
